


My Heart Was Never Pure

by akatonbo



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Cart Scene, M/M, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-11-24 08:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20904575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akatonbo/pseuds/akatonbo
Summary: He wonders what it means as soon as Madeleine says it: "Your face is not a face I would forget."





	My Heart Was Never Pure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marquise_de_Clarabas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marquise_de_Clarabas/gifts).

> An extra treat for the Sewerchat exchange! For the prompt 'Something cute when Javert fall in love with Monsieur Madeleine.' I suspect I did not actually manage 'cute' but this is what came out.

He wonders what it means as soon as Madeleine says it: "Your face is not a face I would forget." 

Is it meant to be a compliment? Surely it cannot be sincere. There is nothing pleasing to the eye about him, neither his features nor his mien; both are harsh. But the way people describe the sainted mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer ill fits the idea of it being an insult, either. 

It did not feel like an insult. He does not know what it _did_ feel like, but it did not feel like an insult.

Perhaps it is simply to be taken at face value -- that it is memorable. A poor characteristic for the face of a police spy, to be sure, but not unprecedented. He is a mediocre actor at best; it is not in his nature to be relaxed and casual, and the natural severity of his countenance has, on occasion, endangered his cover. Never, though, any particular distinctiveness of his features. 

There is little time to puzzle over the mayor's meaning before a cry for help goes up, and Madeleine is lifting the heavy shaft of the cart with the strength of... of a beast, of a jack, the likes of which he has not seen since Toulon, and a man who was both those things. Like a fool he stammers out the comparison, and only realizes what he has done when it is too late, and the mayor, rather than castigate him for saying such a disrespectful thing, both to his face and in front of a crowd, only wants to know more. 

It is a mercy he does not deserve, for such an affront to the office of the mayor, to Madeleine himself... 

And yet when he thinks on it later, despite his shame, he recalls also the brush of Madeleine's fingers against his, when he pressed the rosary into Javert's hand; the way the seams of his jacket strained as he lifted the cart, bending his body in ways the fine garment was never meant to accommodate; the sound of his panting breaths once he had gotten out from under the weight of the cart... and he knows himself the worst kind of fool.


End file.
